The present invention relates to the field of obesity and diabetes and more specifically to minimally invasive systems and methods for controlling or treating obesity and/or type 2 diabetes.
Obesity is one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide and has become a global epidemic affecting more than 400 million people. In the United States alone, approximately 300,000 obesity-linked deaths occur annually, and obesity-related co-morbities lead to nearly $150 billion in healthcare spending. Obesity is a medical condition associated with many subsequent diseases, including type-II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea and certain types of cancer. These conditions often have severe adverse effects on overall health, reduce quality of life, limit productivity, lead to significant medical costs, and can ultimately lead to reduced life expectancy.
While obesity has a range of contributing causes, the vast majority of obese individuals are obese because they overeat, fail to exercise adequately, and in some cases have genetic predispositions to weight gain. The primary treatment for obesity is dieting, routine physical exercise, and in some cases pharmacologic therapy. Obesity surgery, including irreversible Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) and Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding (LAGB), involves surgical restriction of the stomach. These interventions are typically directed at either (i) reducing the caloric intake of the patient by triggering the satiety impulse more rapidly or physically removing the ability of the individual to ingest more than a limited amount of food, or (ii) inhibiting the ability of the individual's digestive system to extract the full caloric value of the food being eaten.
The current surgical treatments for obesity, although often effective in achieving sustainable weight loss and thus reducing associated co-morbidities, involve gross anatomical reconstruction of the digestive system, which may be irreversible. Unfortunately, as has become widely publicized in the print and broadcast media, there can be significant adverse events, complications, and/or mortality associated with the most radical of these procedures (including but not limited to RYGB). In a large number of patients, subsequent surgical procedure(s) are required to address the complication(s) from the original surgery. While use of RYGB and LAGB are approved for individuals with lower BMIs (i.e., <40), the risks associated with the procedures have limited their adoption and/or use to only the morbidly obese population (>40 BMI). Recent reports indicate that there is a need to expand the options for obesity surgery in order to provide safer alternatives for individuals who are not prepared to risk the adverse consequences of radical RYGB and LAGB surgery, but for whom a surgical intervention is wholly appropriate. In fact, many individuals who could benefit from surgical intervention before their excess weight results in serious health problems forego surgery due to the significant complications and high rates of long-term adverse events leading to poor quality of life. Thus, there is a growing need for an effective and safe alternative to obesity surgery for the obese patient population worldwide.
Diabetes mellitus type 2 or type 2 diabetes is a disorder that is characterized by high blood glucose in the context of insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency. There are an estimated 23.6 million people in the U.S. (7.8% of the population) with diabetes with 17.9 million being diagnosed, 90% of whom are type 2. With prevalence rates doubling between 1990 and 2005, CDC has characterized the increase as an epidemic. Traditionally considered a disease of adults, type 2 diabetes is increasingly diagnosed in children in parallel to rising obesity rates due to alterations in dietary patterns as well as in life styles during childhood.
Type 2 diabetes is a chronic, progressive disease that has no established cure, but does have well-established treatments which can delay or mitigate the inevitable consequences of the condition. Often, the disease is viewed as progressive since poor management of blood sugar leads to a myriad of steadily worsening complications. However, if blood sugar is properly maintained, then the disease is effectively cured—that is, patients are at no heightened risk for neuropathy, blindness, or any other high blood sugar complication. Type 2 is initially treated by adjustments in diet and exercise, and by weight loss, most especially in obese patients. The amount of weight loss which improves the clinical picture is sometimes modest (2-5 kg or 4.4-11 lb); this is almost certainly due to currently poorly understood aspects of fat tissue activity, for instance chemical signaling (especially in visceral fat tissue in and around abdominal organs).
Gastric bypass procedures typically entail surgical restriction of the size of the stomach and rerouting or bypassing a proximal portion the intestine to reduce absorption of nutrients. A study of 20-years of gastric bypass patients found that 80% of those with type 2 diabetes before surgery no longer required insulin or oral agents to maintain normal glucose levels. Weight loss also occurred rapidly in many people in the study who had had the surgery. Unfortunately, gastric bypass procedures involve irreversible reconstruction of gastrointestinal anatomy and may be associated with significant adverse events, and/or mortality. In spite of the growth in the number of surgical procedures for weight loss (greater than 250,000 annually in the US), only 1.2% of eligible patients elect to undergo these invasive surgeries each year.
Many patients who could benefit from these procedures forego surgery due to the significant complications and high rates of long-term adverse events leading to poor quality of life. The estimated 0.3-2% mortality rate along with the 19% surgical complication rate for RYGB have been major barriers for expanding the use of surgery in broader patient populations.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for new devices and methods for controlling and treating obesity and type 2 diabetes.